Return with me now to those days of Yesteryear

["labehotierre" <labehotierre@wanadoo.fr>]

The romance of Scotland is in its place-names and family names. Scotland
exists not in it's
mines, fields or industries  but in  the collective memories born in the
blood of her far flung
children. The name Scotland dates from  circa.940  literally it means `the
land of the Irish'.
Ireland to the Romans was Scotia; Scotland was Caledonia or Alba. Irish
Celtic invaders,
traditionally led by the three sons of Erc, Fergus, Loarn and Angus, came to
Scotland from
Ulster in the 5th or 6th century bringing their name with them.

The Picts, the Celts, the Romans, the Irish (or the Scoti as they were
originally called), the
Angles, the Vikings, the Normans and the English all have played their parts
Scotland was
not mapped until about AD 1600.  Scotland is not unique in this. Map-making
is a young
science. The Greek, Ptolemy, mapped the ancient world in the 2nd century AD,
using
information gathered by travellers, but his maps were crude in outline and
contained relatively
few names less than 40 in Scotland.

The first topographical survey of Scotland was conducted by Timothy Pont
sometime between
1590 and 1610. Minister of Dunnet in Caithness, he found in the Highlands
"inhabitants hostile
and uncivilized, whose language he did not understand". He was, alas,
"defeated by the greed
of printers and booksellers" and was not able to publish his results. His
drafts survived and
these came into the hands of a Sir John Scot who commissioned a geographer,
Robert Gordon,
and his son James, to prepare them for publication by the great engraver,
John Blau of
Amsterdam. In 1641 the proofs were shown to King Charles I, who referred in
a letter to Scot
to "certane cairttis [maps] of divers schyres of this kingdome". The atlas
was published in
1654 it contained 49 maps and was one of Blau's finest creations. John Speed
had published a
single sheet map of the whole of Scotland in 1610, but this contained only a
fraction of the
information in the atlas..

Written records from much earlier periods do exist. "Scotland under Robert
the Bruce"
represents the first attempt to map  Scotland in detail.  The account starts
at 1314, the date of
Bannockburn. Many  place-names - many are recorded for the first time around
1300, many of
the great Scottish clans came to prominence though their support of Bruce
and were granted
huge estates in the aftermath of his triumph. A map drawn at 1314 shows most
of the clans in
possession of the lands with which they are still associated today. (Records
of the period are,
of course, incomplete, and more than a  little artistic licence has been
used, in that several
clans shown probably received their lands during the remaining 15 years of
Bruce's reign rather
than in1314 itself.)  The strong loined progenitor of many a clan lived
after this period.

The earliest inhabitants of Scotland are known to us only by their
archaeological remains: the
great Stone Age chamber-tombs of Orkney, for example, and the Bronze Age
stone circles on
the same island and on Lewis. Bronze Age "Beaker folk", named after their
drinking vessels,
probably moved into eastern Scotland from Europe around 1800 BC. There is
much dispute as
to whether the cultural changes during the next 1,500 years were the result
of fresh
immigration or simply developments by the native tribes themselves. What is
certain, however,
is that by about 300 BC, Celts of mainland Europe were colonising England
and Ireland and
must at least have been putting pressure on Scotland. Significant quantities
of Celtic artifacts
do not appear in the country until the period AD 50-150, however, and it is
not clear if these
were introduced by invaders displacing earlier peoples or whether they
arrived as the result of
intermarriage with southern tribes. What is certain is that Celtic was
spoken by at least some of
the tribes north of the Forth by this time. Traditionally the Latin name for
these mysterious
natives, Picti, derived from their practice of painting their bodies.

After initial forays by Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 BC, the Romans invaded
Britain a century
later in AD 43.     By AD 78, in spite of resistance from leaders such as
Caractacus and
Boudicca, the Romans had subdued England and Wales and were free to turn
their attention to
Scotland. In AD 81, Cnaeus Julius Agricola and the Ninth Legion marched
north,
accompanied by his son-in-law, Tacitus the historian, who authored the first
writings of
Scottish history. Agricola  aided by his fleet, made  steady progress, his
headquarters was at
Stirling. The Romans defeated the domestic leader Calgacus in AD 83 or 84 at
Mount
Graupius, conceivably as far north as Banffshire. Shortly after this,
however, to Tacitus'
disgust, Agricola was recalled as his troops were needed elsewhere. Rome
settled then for
containment rather than for conquest of Scotland. In 121, the Emperor
Hadrian visited Britain
and built his famous stone wall from the Solway to the Tyne; only 20 years
later a turf wall
was constructed from the Clyde to the Forth and was named the Antonine Wall
(Pontius Pilate
is alleged by many to have been born in Scotland, his father was purportedly
in charge of
building the Antonine Wall The dates just do not match.) after the Emperor
Antoninus Pius.
This was held for 50 years. In AD 208, the Emperor Septimius Severus led a
final advance
north of the Forth before dying in York in AD 211. For the next two
centuries, Hadrian's Wall
was the northern boundary of the Roman Empire. The final withdrawal of the
Roman legions
from Britain in AD 410, following the Rescript of Honorius, ushered in a
period of Scottish
history which is both abstruse and  undocumented. Within a few years the
Picts north of the
Forth would find themselves competing fiercely for territory in Alba, as
Scotland was then
called, with three other peoples: the Angles, the Britons and the Scots.
After losing some
territory to the Vikings , the four kingdoms would eventually merge to form
the Kingdom of
the Scots. Many treat the Romans in Britain as a footnote. 500 years is a
very long footnote

The Roman retreat was  forced on Rome by the invading tribes of central and
northern Europe.
One of these tribes, the Angles, began settling in northern Britain in the
5th century AD and by
the 7th had formed the kingdom of Northumbria, stretching from the Tyne to
the Forth. Much
of the area, which included Lothian and Bernicia, is now in England, but it
is all north of
Hadrian's Wall. Other Angles, and their cousins the Saxons and the Jutes,
invaded England at
the same time, driving the Celtish inhabitants west into Wales and Cornwall
and north into
Cumbria and Strathclyde. Celtic resistance was at some stage, and in some
unknown but much
disputed area, led by a king called Arthur - later the subject of legend.

The Celtic - or British, as it came to be known - colonisation of the full
width of southern Alba
at the expense of the Picts had begun by the 1st century AD. The Roman
conquest of southern
Britain certainly accelerated the process, and the arrival of the Angles and
Saxons added
further impetus. As the Angles moved into Northumbria, the Britons, after
fierce fighting,
retreated to the west. They established the Kingdom of Strathclyde, with its
capital at
Dumbarton; this consisted of modern Strathclyde and Galloway, and reached
down into the
English Lake District.

The Romans never invaded Ireland, which they called Scotia, although they
traded with the
inhabitants, the Gaels, or the Scots as they were also known. Like Britain,
Ireland had been
colonised by Celts from about 300 BC, and consisted of various tribal
kingdoms, whose kings
periodically and reluctantly recognised one of their number as high king.
The country as a
whole was never united. From about the 3rd century AD, the Scots in Ulster,
which was
known as Dalriada, began to colonise western Scotland north of Strathclyde.
To this day the
area they occupied is known as Argyll "the coastline of the Gaels". Rather
confusingly, some
history books refer to this ancient kingdom as Dalriada without specifying
Scottish Dalriada.

The most important colonising expedition was that led by the three sons of
King Erc; Fergus,
Angus and Lorn. Fergus and Angus imprinted  their names on Scottish regions.
Fergus is
credited with bringing the Stone of Scone to Scotland, is commemorated by
Carrickfergus in
Ulster, named after the rock which sank his ship as he returned across the
Irish Sea. The kings
of Scottish Dalriada for generations remained subservient to those of
Ireland. A separate
development occurred some centuries later when southern Strathclyde received
an influx of
Gaels of mixed Irish and Norse ancestry; these people became known as
Gall-Ghóódil
"stranger Gaels" and gave their name to Galloway in Ireland.

The power struggle in Alba between the Picts, the Scots, the Angles and the
Britons lasted
many centuries. A major factor in their eventual unification was
Christianity. In AD 397, St
Ninian had founded the monastery of Candida Casa at Whithorn in Strathclyde,
but it was the
arrival in Scottish Dalriada of Christian missionaries from Ireland in the
6th century that had
the greater impact. (It had, of course, been a British missionary, St
Patrick who had introduced
Christianity to Ireland some time earlier.) St Oran established churches on
Iona, Mull and
Tiree before dying of plague in AD 548. St Columba, arriving in AD 563, just
after the Scots
has been defeated by the Picts in a major battle, first acted to stabilize
the fledging kingdom by
selecting a new king, then established a monastery on Iona, before
travelling as a missionary
deep into Pictish territory. Other saints founded churches in Dalriada, and
St Aidan (died AD
651) travelled from Iona to found an abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria at
the request of the
king there. It was the Northumbrian king in AD 664 who at the Synod of
Whitby had to decide
whether to favour the Roman practice of Christianity or the more relaxed
style which had been
accepted in the Celtic church. (The date of Easter and the correct type of
tonsure were both
subject to much controversy.) The king came down on the side of the Roman
church. Twenty
years later, St Cuthbert, became abbot-bishop at Lindisfarne. Much of our
knowledge of these
events comes from the Ecclesiastical History of the English People written
by the Venerable
Bede, a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Jarrow in Northumbria, who died
in AD 735.

During the Dark Ages, each of the four peoples of Alba gained territory at
one time or another
only to be checked in a major battle. In AD 843, however, King Kenneth
MacAlpin of
Dalriada, who may have had a claim to the Pictish throne as a result of
intermarriage (the Picts
had a matriarch linear form of succession), defeated the Picts and made
himself ruler of all
Alba north of the Forth. He promptly moved his political capital to
Forteviot in the east, and
the religious capital from Iona to Dunkeld. In spite of persistent efforts,
however, Kenneth was
unable to conquer the Angles in Lothian, and his successors soon found
themselves too
pre-occupied with Viking raids to look south.

It was only in about 1018 that Kenneth's descendant, Malcolm II, defeated
the Northumbrian
army at Carham and established his rule in Lothian, the region between the
Forth and the
Tweed. Malcolm's grandson, Duncan I, in the same year succeeded to the
throne of
Strathclyde, like Kenneth, benefiting from a claim through the female line.
When Malcolm
died in 1034, Duncan became the first king of all Scotland, although his
kingdom did not
include the lands held by the Vikings. The Celtic system of succession,
called tanistry, In
Scotland from time immemorial, the rule of tanistry (or thanistry, as in
thane) had long
determined the descent of authority within a clan, It held that "succession
to an estate or
dignity was conferred by election upon the 'eldest and worthiest' among the
surviving
kinsmen." Candidates for this honour were males within the circle of kin
called the derbfine all
the relatives within the span of four generations to the last Chief. By the
rule of tanistry, one
man among that group was chosen to head the family: he who was strongest,
toughest and
most cunning. This principle became an invitation to violent conflict, and
the question was
often settled by a trial of strength and cunning. The winner became the
elder of his family or
clan, and was honoured with deference and deep respect. The losers were
degraded and
despised if they were lucky. In ancient days they were sometimes murdered,
blinded or
maimed. By the rule of tanistry, families, clans and even the  kingdom
gained strong leaders
who were able to protect them and pass their blood to the next generation.
Thus it was that
Duncan's cousin, Macbeth, the Mormaer of Moray, was able to gather
sufficient support in
1040 to kill Duncan in battle (not in bed) and seize the throne. In spite of
a bad press from
Shakespeare, Macbeth was  a successful king for 17 years. He even made a
pilgrimage to
Rome. In 1057, he in his turn was deposed by Duncan's son, Malcolm III or
Ceann Morr `big
head'. Malcolm, who had been raised in England from the age of nine, took as
his second wife
Princess Margaret of England, who with her brother, Edgar the Atheling, had
fled first to
Hungary then to Scotland after the Norman Conquest in 1066. (Ceann Morrs
first wife had
been daughter of the Norse earl of Orkney, a predecessor in title to Prince
Henry Sinclair.)
Prompted by Margaret, Malcolm introduced Anglo-Saxon customs into his court,
while she
endeavoured to enforce religious practices in the Roman rite, such as
celibacy, on a reluctant
Scottish church. Spurred on by his knowledge of England and by the
possession of a
ready-made claimant to the English throne in his brother-in-law, Malcolm
raided Northumbria
This precipitated a Norman invasion of Scotland in 1071, during which
Malcolm was obliged
to pay homage to William the Conqueror at Abernethy. He did not give up,
however, and it
was during his fifth border campaign in 1093 that he was killed at Alnwick
Castle. Margaret,
who died three days later, was canonized in 1251.

The Vikings flooded out of Scandinavia in virtually every direction, taking
what they coveted
and envying no one, they were energy incarnated. No one knows for sure what
initiated the
migration of the Vikings.  The reasons  are lost in the murky waters of
unwritten  history,   we
do however know that the first thirteen Viking ships to arrive off the coast
of France in 820AD
were driven away without too much effort on the part of the defenders and
with only a minor
loss of life, if it is not your life I suppose it might be considered minor.
It was the beginning of
a pattern that would continue for the better part of a hundred years. As
spring followed spring
and success followed success the raiders became more persistent and the
raiding fleets became
larger and larger. In 845AD Charles II, the Bald paid Reginherus or Ragnar,
7,000 pounds of
silver to depart in peace and take his plunder with him, and so a pattern of
escalation was set.

A landmark of history was reached in 911AD at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte when an
arrangement
was concluded between King Charles III of France and the Viking chief Rolf,
or Rollo. It is
not that there had been no previous treaties and truces to pave the way; but
this one was
especially important because by it the 'North Men' were deeded actual land
and people. The
only concessions made by Rollo were his agreement to protect the land
against all comers even
against other Vikings, his swearing an oath of loyalty to the king of France
and his willingness
to embrace Christianity. The Norman's adopted Frankish ways and
institutions, to which they
added their own elements; and within slightly more than a century after the
treaty they had set
up a dukedom that was notably more advanced than the kingdom of their feudal
overlord.
Thus, Rollo the Viking became what is generally considered to be the first
duke of Normandy,
though he and his two immediate successors used the lesser designation of
'Count'. Not long
after the Saint-Clair-sur- Epte agreement of 911, further concessions from
the Frankish Kings
were forthcoming for the Norman's, and by 1000AD, much of historical
Normandy was in
Norman hands. This was not due to further invasions, the Norman's proved
themselves to be
clever and adaptive, and they married into many local families. Rollo
married one Popa the
daughter of a Frankish count of Bayeux. Their son William called Longsword
married to the
daughter of yet another Frankish count, felt compelled to send his son to
Bayeux to learn
Norse, as it was no longer being spoken in their principle city of Rouen.

Viking raids on Britain (and Ireland), began in the late 8th century AD,
when Iona and
Lindisfarne were sacked. Within a hundred years, the Orkneys and Shetlands
and much of the
Hebrides and Argyll were under Viking control - as also were Caithness and
Sutherland. After
initial violent assaults, further progress was achieved by inter-marriage as
well as conquest,
particularly in Argyll. It was not until the mid-12th century that a local
leader, Somerled,
half-Norse himself and the progenitor of the MacDonald and MacDougall clans,
weakened the
grip of the king of Norway on western Scotland. Banish the thought  that
Somerled was acting
for the king of Scots he acted  for himself.  Somerled  sailed up the Clyde
and sacked
Glasgow. And it was only in 1266, three years after an unsuccessful
expedition to the
Hebrides by King Haakon IV of Norway, that the islands were formally ceded
to the Scottish
crown. The Orkneys and Shetlands were pawned to Scotland as part of a
marriage contract
between Norway and Denmark in 1469.

William the Conqueror's raid on Scotland in 1071 was not a serious attempt
at conquest ,it was
a continuation of the Viking tradition but it did herald a period of Norman
influence in
Scotland which was almost as profound as that in England. In 1093, Malcolm
III was
succeeded by his brother, Donald Ban, who had spent his childhood with the
Vikings in the
Hebrides and who immediately reversed many of Malcolm's policies. William
Rufus (II) of
England responded by backing Malcolm's son by his first marriage, Duncan,
who had been
held as a hostage in England, against Donald Ban. Donald Ban was first
overthrown, then
restored to the throne when Duncan was murdered, then overthrown again by
Edgar, Duncan's
half-brother. Edgar, the first of the three sons of Malcolm and Margaret
sons to reign in
Scotland, had, like his brothers, Alexander and David, received a Norman
education at the
English court. It was perhaps natural, therefore, that he should reward
those Normans who had
helped him against Donald, with grants of land in the Lowlands (a process
already begun by
Malcolm Ceann Morr). Alexander, whose sister married Henry I of England and
who himself
married Henry's daughter, continued this policy, as did David who reigned
from 1124-1153.
Indeed, it was David who brought to Scotland such famous families as the
Bruces, the
Comyns and the Fitzalans. (Walter Fitzalan was made High Steward of
Scotland, and his
descendants were to form the Stewart dynasty. The name was changed in the
16th century to
Stuart, the French spelling, that language having no W.) David, however, was
a much stronger
king than his brothers, who had effectively been clients of Henry I.
Although he established an
Anglo-Norman aristocracy in Scotland, it was with a view to asserting the
country's
independence, and the feudalism he fostered was tempered with the strong
emphasis on the
extended family which was the hallmark of the Celtic clan tradition.

The 130 years following David's death saw just four kings: Malcolm IV
(1153-65), William
the Lion (1165-1214), Alexander II (1214-49), and Alexander III (1249-86).
It was a period of
consolidation with each king trying to re-establish the control in the
Highlands, and in
Galloway, which had been forfeited as the Celts had reacted against the way
the crown had
come under Norman influence. Malcolm IV defeated Somerled after he had
driven the Vikings
from Argyll; William campaigned successfully in the north; Alexander II
subdued Argyll; and
Alexander III forced the King of Norway to recognise the Hebrides as part of
the kingdom of
Scotland. It must be said, however, that Somerled's descendants, the
MacDonald `Lords of the
Isles' paid as little attention to the Scottish kings they had to their
former master. Throughout
this time England made repeated efforts to establish its claim to
overlordship, and for 15 years
after a disastrous campaign in England in 1174, William the Lion was
formally subject to
Henry II. In the Quitclaim of Canterbury in 1189, however, Richard I (the
Lionheart), sold
Scotland back its independence for 10,000 marks to finance the Third
Crusade. Alexander III's
reign in particular saw increased prosperity, and Scotland's future looked
bright when in 1286
the king's horse stumbled in the dark and he was killed visiting, in the
role of sire and
progenitor a lady. His heir was his infant grand-daughter, the `Maid of
Norway', who just four
years later was to die in the Orkneys on her way to Scotland accompanied by
Sinclair, Lord
High Admiral of Scotland. Tthirteen claimants now asserted their right to
the vacant Scottish
throne.

Alexander's death brought into Scottish history the formidable figure of
Edward I of England,
who had just conquered  Wales. Before the Maid of Norway travelled to
Scotland it had been
agreed by a panel of `guardians' that she should marry Edward's son and
heir, although
Scotland still should retain its independence. On her death, Edward was
invited to choose
between the claimants to the throne. Smelling opportunity, he re-asserted
the English claim to
feudal overlordship of Scotland.   This claim which was accepted by the
contestants, who were
each hoping to be selected by him, but not by the `community of the realm',
a group of
important Scottish laymen and churchmen. Edward conferred with 80 Scottish
and 24 English
auditors at Berwick Castle. He chose John Balliol over his arch challenger,
Robert the Bruce.
Both men had previously served in Edward's army. Balliol was a weak man,
but even he
reacted against the domineering treatment he subsequently received from the
English king. In
1296, he made an alliance with France and invaded England. Edward responded
with a
counter-invasion, and large numbers of Scottish nobles including Bruce and
his son, another
Robert, most of whom also had estates in England, came to pay him homage.
Furious, Balliol
confiscated Bruce's lands in Scotland and gave them to `Red' John Comyn.
Edward captured
Berwick with great slaughter; then, with Bruce at his side, defeated Balliol
at Dunbar, before
conducting a ruthless campaign as far north as Elgin. In August, back at
Berwick, Edward
required 2000 Scottish landowners to sign the `Ragman’s Roll' acknowledging
himself as
king. He then returned to England, carrying with him the Stone of Scone.
Scotland crushed
under the English heel.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  The next year, however, a
young Scot, William
Wallace, became involved in a fight with English soldiers at Lanark. He
escaped with the help
of a girl, possibly his wife, but she was captured and executed. Wallace
started a resistance
campaign and a few months later triumphed over a vastly superior force led
by Edward's
viceroy at Stirling Bridge. Wallace  was defeated by Edward the next year at
Falkirk, but
remained at large until 1305, when he was captured and executed as a traitor
in London. His
revolt showed that there was a ardent aspiration for independence in
Scotland (he was branded
a traitor to a regime he had never accepted), but also that only a genuine
claimant to the throne
could lead a successful revolt.  Two possible leaders now emerged: Robert
`the' Bruce, son of
Balliol's rival in 1291, and `Red' John Comyn. The two men met in a kirk at
Dumfries to
discuss future plans; there is no record of the meeting, but an argument
must have broken out,
for Bruce stabbed and killed Comyn. It was not an auspicious start to
Bruce's campaign and he
was immediately excommunicated by the church. Bruce had himself crowned at
Scone on 27th
March, 1306. Retribution was swift; Edward sent an army north under de
Valence, which
routed the Bruce at Methven. Bruce became a fugitive and his supporter Simon
de Fraser
suffered the same fate as Wallace the year before. Bruce spent the next year
on the run, but
was soon to prove himself a charismatic and successful guerrilla leader,
achieving his first
victory in 1307, on Palm Sunday.

Furious, Edward marched north with a large army, but died at Burgh-on-Sands.
On his
deathbed, he ordered that his body be boiled and his  bones should be
carried at the head of his
army until Scotland was subdued. His son Edward II, of very different mettle
from his father,
called off the campaign. But even with the withdrawal of Edward II, Bruce
was still faced
with the prospect of years of struggle against his Scottish enemies as well
as the English
garrisons in numerous castles. The Norman feudal system, control territories
with castles and
church had come to Scotland.  1311 saw Bruce  strong enough to invade
England and sack
Durham, and by 1313 he had ousted the garrisons from every bastion in
Scotland except
Stirling. Edward II  set out with a large relief force. It was beside the
Bannock Burn in front of
Stirling on 24th June 1314 that the two armies met and it was there that
Bruce achieved the
famous victory with which he has always been associated. Bannockburn was not
a typical
example of Bruce's tactics: he had survived by skirmishing ( the Scrymgeour
Skirmeschur (in
the old county of) Angus, Fife Date: 1297  Middle English skrymsher
`swordsman', from Old
French eskermisor. It is likely that the family was originally based in
Fife, but in 1297 Sir
Alexander Skirmeschur was granted the lands in Angus and created Constable
of Dundee by
William Wallace after his valiant services as Hereditary Bannerman (Standard
Bearer) at the
Battle of Stirling Bridge)  rather than by fighting set-piece battles.
Fourteen  years were after
Bannockburn the English eventually recognised an independent Scotland by the
Treaty of
Northampton. In these 14 years saw Bruce played  statesman as well as a
soldier, and in 1320
his chancellor  drafted the `Declaration of Arbroath'. The Declaration is a
letter to the Pope in
which the Magnates, Barons and Earls, among them Sinclair, of Scotland
mortgaged
themselves to Scottish independence and declared their loyalty to Bruce. In
1329, just before
Bruce's death at the age of 53,  from leprosy, the Pope granted Scottish
kings the right to be
anointed with holy oil.

The reign of Bruce was the zenith of autonomous Scottish history.   Scotland
was coalesced in
purpose as never before. Clans seemed alway ready to do battle but seldom
ready to be led.
Do not however visualize that Bruce's triumphs outlasted him. Each king had
to make his own
fortune, and the accession of Bruce's five-year-old son was a signal for
further chaos; just four
years later Berwick, that talisman  of Scottish fortunes, fell to the
English ( for 20 years in the
15th century was the only time Scotland held Berwick again).

The Clan system owes its origin to the Celtic tribal tradition, and remains
at its strongest north
of the `Highland Line' where Gaelic was the primary language until
comparatively recently.
The introduction of the Norman Feudal System from the south altered the
relationship between
the clan chiefs and the king, in that lands which had previously been held
by the clans were
now deemed to belong to the monarch, to be granted as he willed. The Chiefs
lost the holding
of lands in common for the clansman.  The internal organization of the clans
was little
changed, however, and the chief, who succeeded according to the law of
tanistry, dispensed
justice in peacetime and led his clan in war. Each clan consisted of `native
men', related by
blood, and `broken men' - individuals or coteries from other clans, who
sought and obtained
maintenance of the clan. The Normans, who came north from England, adopted
many of these
customs; the great Sinclair clan in Caithness  owes its size to the number
of retainers who took
to themselves the chief's name. The custom of fosterage, the mutual exchange
of children
(often including the chief's children) between families, did much to bind
the clan together. Sinclair is more a territorial family than a clan

The Gaelic proverb "Kindred to forty degrees, fosterage to a hundred",
describes a feeling of
clan loyalty and egalitarianism."

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